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The following story is reposted from an article in the Hamilton Spectator

By Scott Radley (PHOTO: Bolts TV)

For more than four rounds they'd sat through the NHL draft waiting for their son's name to get called. Then midway through the fifth round when he was supposed to be in play and his dream was supposed to come true, the team that was supposed to be most interested traded away its two next picks.

That was it for mom and dad. They couldn't take it anymore. They left their seats in Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center and started pacing the concourse, a safe distance from any more stress.

"Nervousness caught up to us," Danny DiGiacinto says. "I didn't want to see Cristiano sad or disappointed."

What dad didn't know at that moment was how the wheels were turning behind the scenes that would lead to the climax of what is almost certainly the most Hamilton-centric story in the 52-year history of the NHL draft.

Quite frankly, a lot of people would've called Cristiano DiGiacinto and his family a little nuts for going to the draft at all. By most accounts, he was a maybe. There was no guarantee he'd hear his name. And if he didn't, it would undoubtedly be a long, quiet ride home.

The Sherwood grad knows a little about that. After being passed over twice in the Ontario Hockey League draft and then not making the Erie Otters or even the Jr. B Stoney Creek Warriors as a walk-on, the 18-year-old admits he'd seriously thought about quitting the game rather than being stung again.

"It hurt," he says.

But the 5-foot-10, 185-pound wrecking ball with hands decided to give things one more shot.

This time it clicked. His sensational start with the Tier II Hamilton Red Wings was so good that the Windsor Spitfires came calling with a free-agent contract just a couple months into the season. Given his shot on the big stage at long last, he didn't disappoint. The gritty winger put up points. He played with a mean streak and a nasty edge. He turned himself into a prospect.

Noticing all this was Rob Kitamura. The Hamilton man was the head of OHL Central Scouting until taking a job a couple years ago as Ontario scout for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He saw a young guy with talent, a work ethic, character and room to get better.

"I had a pretty strong feeling about him, watching him on the ice," Kitamura says.

When he sat down with the kid for a face-to-face, his belief became even stronger. He immediately sent word back to the Bolts that he had a player they might want to consider.

The hockey world is a small one. Soon DiGiacinto's agents – Culley Curran and Paul Lawson, two Hamilton guys from the local-based CCSI Sports – started hearing rumblings that their guy was getting some attention and might have a shot in the draft.

"When he first came into the (OHL), he was on fire," Cullan says. "Guys were saying, 'Where did this kid come from? He's scoring, he's fighting, he's hitting.'"

By the end of the season, the chatter had become loud enough that the decision was made for everyone to head to Philadelphia this weekend. Still knowing the odds were still pretty long.

Which brings us back to that fifth round.

There might've been other teams interested, but the Lightning seemed to be the one that really wanted him. So when it traded its two picks to the New York Rangers, everyone's heart sank a bit.

A few minutes later, Curran called Kitamura, who was sitting at Tampa's draft table with the brass – including one-time Hamilton Bulldogs' GM Julien BriseBois – and asked if his guy was still an option. Turns out the team's director of amateur scouting had just told Kitamura that if his guy was still there when their spot came up in the sixth round, they'd grab him.

"I just (told Curran), 'Don't worry,'" Kitamura says.

That was the cue for mom and dad to be summoned from the concourse. A few picks after they got back into their seats, the Lightning took the microphone.

With the 170th pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, the Tampa Bay Lightning select, from the Ontario Hockey League's Windsor Spitfires, Cristiano DiGiacinto. Dad immediately had tears. Mom, too.

"I was speechless," DiGiacinto says. "My smile was huge."

A few minutes later as his head was still spinning, the unlikelihood of his entire story dawned on him.

A Hamilton guy with Hamilton agents gets noticed by a Hamilton scout who takes him to a one-time Hamilton GM who helps draft him onto an NHL team whose home arena is guarded by a nine-foot statue of Hamilton's greatest-ever forward holding the Stanley Cup overhead. The same man whose name is on the arena in Hamilton DiGiacinto called home at the start of this season.

"Now I'm going to Dave Andreychuk's organization," he says.

You can't make this stuff up.